


All Fall Down

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Series: Dread: the Lost Year [5]
Category: Sagas of Sundry, Sagas of Sundry: Dread (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 12:30:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13764225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: "Are we gonna see their falling out? Are we gonna see the lead up to that "hit yourself harder so I can see it" moment?" -- brotherkashawYes.





	All Fall Down

**Author's Note:**

> A note from your Storyteller:
> 
> You don’t want to read this.
> 
> You know that this must end badly for the saga to continue.
> 
> You don’t want to know what happens, what shatters this slowly budding relationship. Stay away. Don’t read on. Let yourself imagine that nothing goes wrong, that the rot doesn’t seep in, that the world doesn’t fall apart.
> 
> I have only the power to warn you, not to hold you back.
> 
> Never say I didn’t try.
> 
> * * *

It’s nice, having somewhere consistent to sleep and stash his stuff while he’s up in the city. He has his own key for the times when Kayden’s working and Tanner’s staying home, or for when Kayden’s sleeping off a night shift and Tanner has to let himself in after a shoot. Tanner doesn’t go so far as to convert the bathroom into a darkroom, but there are times when he thinks about the logistics of it.

Kayden comes home smelling of beer, of latex, of sex, of cigarettes, but Kayden comes home sober and, aside from one night where they actually do get high together and fuck long and slow for what seems like hours, doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the fact. Sometimes he’s worn out from his shift and doesn’t want sex; other times he’s so wound up from it that they don’t get to sleep for hours.

There’s part of Tanner that assumes it won’t last forever. There’s part of him that looks at apartment listings with the two of them in mind. There’s part of him that’s a little jealous of Kayden continuing to work at the video store, but mostly he doesn’t mind.

He spends more and more nights away from his parents’ place.

They do try fucking through the glory hole one night, but although Tanner still comes it’s mostly from the novelty of the situation and it’s too awkward to really work.

The apartment’s never not going to be a shithole, but it starts to look like someone lives there instead of just sleeping there.

* * *

Tiff teases Kayden relentlessly about his boyfriend; eventually he stops snarling at her over it.

He doesn’t stop working. The tips help pay for the extra food they consume. Not that Tanner doesn’t contribute to the household expenses, but both of them develop relentless appetites on more than one level.

Plus it’s not like he’s getting that weekly tip from Tanner any more.

A few times, though…

A few times he gets home and showers and while he’s in the bathroom, Tanner slides a twenty under the door, and that means… well. What it means to Tanner, Kayden doesn’t know; some sort of fucked-up nostalgic thing.

What it means to Kayden is that when he comes out of the bathroom, steam wreathing around his naked body, Tanner will still be fully dressed, and Kayden will strip him off slowly while Tanner tells him what new idea has made it onto his wishlist this time.

* * *

Kayden’s sitting on Tanner’s bare stomach, wearing Tanner’s glasses and teasing him about how shitty his eyesight is, when someone starts pounding on the front door, yelling Kayden’s name.

“Jesus. Mickey, if it’s about the rent, I’m paid through the end of May!”

“Open up, man, it’s me!”

Whoever the fuck “me” is, he seems pretty adamant about being let in.

Kayden gets up off Tanner, pulling his t-shirt back on, and goes to the door. Tanner sits up, polishing his glasses and putting them back on.

The boy in the hallway—and Tanner’s mind insists on labelling him a “boy”, despite the fact that he must be their age—has straggly blond hair, a straggly white face, and a straggly smile dripping off his cheeks.

“What do you want, JJ?” Kayden asks cautiously. He only vaguely recalls the kid from college, bumbling his way through a series of passes mostly on luck.

“My usual dealer’s all dried up. You holding?”

“What? No!” Kayden flaps a hand in JJ’s face. “I don’t do that any more.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, right across the room, Tanner nonetheless doesn’t have to listen too closely to hear the conversation. JJ’s too loud.

“Aw, come on. You must have something. I can pay.” JJ’s breath already reeks of pot; if he does any more it’ll leave his brain smoked like chorizo.

“Listen to me. I don’t have anything. I can’t sell you what I don’t have.”

“That sucks.” JJ slumps against the door frame. “You were like the most awesome person at that dumb school until you got kicked out. Now you’ve gone all, what, straightedge?”

_Kicked out?_

Tanner looks involuntarily at the card table. There’s an art history book on it, bristling with bookmarks. Kayden’s been doing some serious cramming for school, especially if he doesn’t even go there any more.

Or has he?

“JJ. Fuck off.” Kayden’s getting irritated and starting to wonder if he should have ignored the door.

“You were Old Reliable. No. Wait. Old Faithful. Spouting out the good shit like one of those fuckin’ things at Jelly— _Yellowstone_. You made everything more fun.”

Tanner picks up his shirt and turns it the right way out, shrugging into it and buttoning it. They were reading takeout menus before they got distracted and before this asshole turned up. Maybe he can go pick up some Chinese and give Kayden time to throw the dude out.

“Yeah, well, I’m not fun any more. Just ask Tanner.”

“He’s living a very clean life now,” Tanner contributes, pulling his socks on.

“That stinks. Hey, oh my god, remember the time you spiked like three water coolers with LSD?”

Tanner feels the world snap closed. Suddenly he can’t smell Kayden on his skin, the shampoo they share, the general aroma of sex that never quite goes away.

All he can smell is pine needles and copper.

“JJ—”

“Sure it got you kicked out, but it was _the_ most epic—”

“JJ—”

“I mean, _damn_! I still don’t know how you did the one in the staff lounge!”

“JJ! Get the fuck out of my doorway and find someone else to piss off!”

Kayden’s pretty sure that’s worked, because JJ gives him a hurt look and shrinks back.

“Dude, all you had to do was say no.”

“Jesus Christ. Go home.”

“Do you know where maybe I could get some peyote at least?”

“Just _go_.”

Tanner double-knots his second shoe and shoulders his bag. He’s got the camera equipment at least, wrapped in the clean clothes he’d packed for the weekend; if there’s anything he’s leaving behind, it’s not important any more.

Kayden’s easing the door closed when Tanner grabs it. He pushes past Kayden, past JJ, into the hall. His face is blank, and it is the most terrifying thing that Kayden’s ever seen.

“ _Liar_.”

One single word, and he’s gone.

Kayden clings to the door for support, watching Tanner’s back; Tanner doesn’t even wait for the elevator but disappears into the stairwell.

“This seems like a bad time—”

Kayden lashes out; JJ ducks, narrowly escaping a broken nose, and bolts for the elevator.

“No. _No_. _Tanner_!”

Kayden’s scream echoes the length of the hallway, but his only answer is one of the neighbors banging on the inside of their door.

He lets the door swing closed and sags to the floor, putting his hands over his face. He feels as though he’s been punched in the stomach. In the heart, even.

“No.”

He doesn’t move again for half an hour, hoping he’ll hear Tanner’s key in the door. When he doesn’t, he gets to his feet and goes to the kitchenette and finds a nearly untouched bottle of whiskey.

Kayden sits down on the bed, taking a gulp straight from the bottle, and then sees Tanner’s key on the nightstand.

“No,” he says emptily.

The key, knowing better, says nothing.

* * *

Tanner makes it to the end of the block before dropping to his knees, bracing himself against a parked Ford Pinto, and vomiting into the gutter. His mouth feels sour and gritty. He vomits again until there’s nothing left, not even bile.

He can’t make himself move for the longest time, and part of him knows it’s because he’s holding out for Kayden to come out of the shitty brown brick building and tell him none of it was true.

But he's not in the greatest neighborhood, and when the cop car circles the block for the third time, slowing each time it passes the man with the red hair and red eyes who looks like he's been on one fuck of a bender, he knows he's got to go somewhere.

And he knows that what he’s hoping for won’t happen.

He drives toward home, the stuff he grabbed from Kayden’s tossed into the back seat. He doesn’t really want to look at it right now, or think about it right now, or think about Kayden right now.

When the mountain comes into view, he turns off. Stopping in one of the reasonably well-kept parking areas at the foot of a winding, well-defined trail isn't at all the same as struggling laughing over a fence with friends. But the mountain is the same, and when he gets out of the car and sits on a rock, looking at the trail where it disappears into the forest, it smells the same. The fresh, clean air clears his head a little.

There's a tinge of copper when he draws a deep breath, though, and a voice buried low in his lizard brain whispers, _Soon enough. Soon enough_.


End file.
